Different Ways to Spot Fraud in the Expense Management Reports of Your Organization

Expense management reports are one of the most important facts of life for any business that sends employees to visit clients, other offices, and the last but not the least the trade conferences. Though most of the employees here are honest and abide the corporate rules, there are a few dishonest ones who make a serious dent in the bottom line. Though this does not have to be in the same way it is, having a proper knowledge and planning business organizations could help in curtailing the fraud. Below given are the five major ideas and strategies that would help you spot out fraud in the expense management reports of your business organization.

1Provide a proper training to the entire staff of your organization:

Everyone who is responsible for the reimbursement process needs to be educated about how to spot the questionable items, and how they could enquire with the employees about them.

2Import the expenses straight from the employee’s credit card:

One of the best ways of fighting against fraud is to have tampered proof documentation. In short, if the employee is ever in a position to manage and manually enter the expense reports then the risk of mistake or mistake is just too high. Accordingly to mandate purchase made electronically, and then import those electronic purchases directly into the bank or the expense management system. This is not just faster but is also the most convenient process for all the employees who make purchase with credit card gaining a tamperproof straight from the required source.

3Falsified claims:

Either the expense management report that has been submitted to you is given with false documents or with the stolen blank receipts. The attached fake receipts would here often could have been taken from the vendor say the hotels, restaurants and the last but not the least stolen blank receipts, being filled with the inflated and falsified amounts. Another most important thing we come across while dealing with expense management report is the receipts coming from the friends or family member. In other words if you are not going to make use of the receipts can I have them in order to claim the expense reports.

4Require receipts for all the expenses made:

Expense management fraud reports are easy enough to penetrate when organizations do not require any sort of receipts. So whether it is cash expenditure or an unsubstantiated corporate credit card expenses, it does turn out to be important of having documentation in hand which helps you in clarifying what, where, and why a specific expense was made. Organizations here have different approaches when it comes to requiring receipts based on the specific needs and requirements. Some would require receipts for each and every expense that is made while others would require documentation for the expense made above the threshold. Online expense management makes it easy for each and every employee to scan and submit their receipts for the expenses made, allowing the accounts team to maintain a detailed documentation minimizing the paper management.

5Utilize the online expense management technology:

Making use of the online expense management technology is considered to be one of the easiest ways to identify and prevent common expense management reporting issues, along with methods related to employee fraud. Say for example one of the best ways to the employee expense report fraud approach is submitting the duplicate receipts for the expense made. Another is exceeding the time limit for a few of the expenses made, and the last but not the least working around the limits by breaking larger purchases into multiple smaller submissions.

To conclude: in most of the cases of expense management fraud is intentional, where as in most of the cases fraud is generally the result of ignorance, confusion on what is allowed and what is not allowed. Having a clear expense policy in your organization and communicating it among each and every one of them is one of the best ways of helping your employees know what’s acceptable and what’s not. So what other things would you like to add to the list above. And how have you been dealing with them. Do leave your thoughts and comments below.

Author Bio:
Melissa Patterson is a freelancer and has experience of over 5 years in expense management and reporting software. She has in-depth knowledge about managing travel and different type of expenses incurred in business. She writes about expense tracking software as a freelancer.

Melissa Patterson is a freelancer and has experience of over 5 years in expense management and reporting software. She has in-depth knowledge about managing travel and different type of expenses incurred in business. She writes about expense tracking software as a freelancer.